Nowhere

About a month ago, our church's youth group came over to hang out in our basement for games and fun. Our basement is a large area with lots of room, and we had set up tables for games and snacks. Jonathan had borrowed his grandparents' Wii for the evening, and we have a separate room with a ping-pong table. There were about twenty people (including the leaders), and there was no shortage of activities. So I found it a curious thing that every time I looked at one of the girls, she was pulling out her cell phone--obviously texting someone who wasn't there.

I couldn't help but feel a little bit bad for this girl. With everything that we had to offer here that evening, it wasn't enough. Not satisfied to be here in this moment, enjoying the friends and activities that were here, she kept looking for something or someone else outside, something more.

She's not unlike many other teens and even adults out there who try to escape the here and now. Not satisfied just to be in their cars driving someplace, many drivers must talk on their phone at the same time. Not content just to be shopping, shoppers must be conversing with others on their phones at the same time that they're checking out the clothing racks. The need for constant entertainment has become the school's nightmare, as students leave the now of their classrooms to text their friends--who may be sitting somewhere else in the same classroom.

Henry and I were at a local Indian restaurant Friday night, and we noticed two large flat-screen TVs on the wall. They seemed out of place with the Indian decor. Henry observed, "It used to be that eating out was the entertainment. Now there needs to be entertainment at the place of entertainment."

And that led to his other insightful observation of the weekend, which brings me back to the girl who was here with the youth group and the demand for more and more entertainment. For this young lady, to be here and to enjoy the companionship of her friends and the activities we offered was not enough. Through her texting, she was attempting to be someplace else, with someone else. She wasn't really here, and she wasn't really with her friend. Really, she was nowhere, with no one. She wasn't with the kids here, and she wasn't with her friend.

While I appreciate some of the conveniences that modern technologies have brought to our lives (I'm typing this on my laptop in my comfy chair), it is a little disconcerting to see where some of this is leading us. Clearly many are controlled by the technology rather than controlling it. They are its slaves. And it's never satisfying to be a slave. Slaves desire the freedom to be where they want to be, to be with the people of their choice. And slaves to technology demonstrate this restlessness, this dissatisfaction. The irony is, their attempts to break free of the here and now lead them nowhere, to no one.

Hopefully as this Facebooking, iTouching generation matures, it will break free of the slavery of technology and put it in its proper place. Technology is a good and useful thing, a blessing of God that can make our lives easier and more efficient. As our taskmaster, though, it robs us of our ability to find contentment in the here and now.